The Document
by DJ7
Summary: The crew of a new ship is hunting a mysterious matrix document. Please review. I have a second chapter almost done, but beyond that, I don't really know where I'm going. Please bear with me.


Zion text archives: #455b:Conclusion of issue

"DAMMIT!" The word shot loud and clear through the cabin of the _Phantom_. "What is it, Wire?" the operator, Acid, yelled. Most free humans jacked in as soldiers, but Acid had shown a great skill for operating, so they had made an exception. He knew Wire usually pretty cooled down. So when he was pissed that meant they had a problem. Wire spoke quickly, "Closed server. We're gonna have to go on site." "DAMMIT." Closed servers were a bad thing. Since Wire was their resident hacker, he had lots of experience with closed servers even before being freed from the matrix. It surprised him, when he learned how to hack into the system, that the fact that the whole world was one big computer program did almost _nothing_ to make it easier to crack a closed server. Since they have no connection to anything else, there were no references to it in things they had already hacked. The long and short of it was that it would take literally days doing nothing but sitting at the computer to even see the file structure. It would take about another week of straight work to be able to view any data, and then about a month to learn how to modify it. Assuming you never stopped to eat or sleep. So, the only solution to a closed server was to go on site. And if a server had something worth stealing on it, it was probably well protected. And well protected meant, best case, three or four highly trained teams of guards. Worst case: Agents. "What server?" asked Acid. Wire responded, "Some military crap. Located at a secure base." "And it has _what_ on it that we are going to go on site at a military base to get?" said Acid. "The Document," said Wire, "It took me weeks, but I finally found a reference in some top secret email." Acid observed that Wire said "top secret email" as if he were talking about something he found searching Google. Mail server passwords were no problem for him. The Document was probably worth going on site for. This is its story briefly. It was pulled for your reference from another section of the Zion text archives:

Zion reference article #455a: Introduction to issue

The Document

The Document is some kind of significant matrix text archive. Its location constantly seems to change and it is very well protected. The hunt for The Document is one of Zion's hopeless quests. Rumors about its contents have been leaked from many machine sources, but they all seem to conflict. Hacks, secret codes, history. All of these things have been proposed as the contents of The Document. About 3 months prior to the writing of this reference article, the crew of one ship did get close to The Document. The captain jacked in and went for it. Upon reaching the computer it was supposed to be in, his signal became garbled and then cut off completely, which is equivalent to unplugging someone. It killed the captain. All communications with the ship seemed to seal off. About a week and a half afterward, they found a wreck in the tunnels that appeared to be the missing ship. Every crewmember was found dead, and most were horribly mutilated. The search has continued, but with considerably less vigor. Captains were discouraged by seeing the bloody fate of the one crew that got close, and they decided to reduce its priority so they wouldn't have to deal with it.

-END_EXCERPT-

When, Nuke, the captain of the _Phantom_ heard of Wire's discovery, he hesitated noticeably before approving the retrieval mission. "Whatever's in that thing, it better be pretty damn good. We'll set you up, Wire. Can you take this by yourself?" "No problem. It'll be easy. After all, it's only a military base. And they have _way_ more automated defenses than is good for them." The other members of the crew, who were now standing around listening, caught the hint. The last secure area Wire entered was defended mostly by automated machine guns. After Wire messed with their control code for five minutes, the guns killed every armed man in a 5-mile radius, except it let Wire right past.

While Wire prepared himself in his room, Acid was in the engine room working on a personal computer. This is the transcript of his "work".

Acid: He's preparing to go in. He doesn't suspect a thing...

* See that it remains that way. I trust you will carry out your mission better than our last insider. 

Acid: Of course. Leave it to me. Watch the cameras, you'll see the whole damn thing.

* Very well. Meet us two tunnels over after your mission is complete.

As Acid shut down his PC, Wire called from upstairs, "Hey! I'm ready! Acid, you down there?" "Yeah," said Acid coolly, "get in the chair, I'm coming."


End file.
